William Tobin

Bill teaches classes on civil rights and refugee determination and resettlement. His teaching, undergraduate program development, and research are informed by work that takes an interdisciplinary approach to contemporary civil and human rights challenges.

Bill brings an historical, sociological and legal perspective to rights-based issues with a special focus on Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He has worked as an attorney under Julius Chambers at the Center for Civil Rights at the University of North Carolina School Law, co-led a national working group of urban school superintendents focused on linking racial equity and academic achievement and facilitated a community police review in New York state. He is currently focused on academic equity at K-12, specifically ESL education (or lack thereof) and the transition from high school to college and work/career for young people on standard or sheltered/ ESL academic tracks.

Prior to coming to Notre Dame, Bill taught history at the National University of Ireland, where he was a tenured lecturer, and then taught sociology and developed a range of undergraduate programs at Duke University. The programs at Duke focused on developing community relationships, legal and social science research and organizational and community policy change. He co-directed the Honors Program in the Department of Sociology; DukeEngage in Dublin, Republic of Ireland and Durham, NC—summer internship programs that placed undergraduates in Governmental units and NGOs focused on migration, refugees and unaccompanied minors; and the Citizenship Lab—a community-based refugee collaborative made up of elementary, high school, and college students from every background that was focused on understanding, explaining, and responding to the challenges of global migration.

Bill received a PhD in American History from Stanford University and a JD from the University of North Carolina Law School. He taught elementary school in Boston and Baltimore City public schools.